PGA Tour: Change of Ryders: Notes from the Ballwasher

First topic message reminder :

1).The week in Oh Canada started with two damp squibs for sponsors RBC and the Canadian golf fans with Mike Weir (Patron Saint of Canadian golf) withdrawing before the start, and Graham DeLaet damaging his thumb and walking out on Friday. But David Hearn did a marvellous job of carrying the Maple Leaf proudly, if ultimately unsuccessfully, on the weekend. Unfortunately for the most patriotic fans, Hearn was overwhelmed over the last few holes by Jason Day and Bubba Watson in an exciting turbo-charged finish.

2).It was good to see "Canada" embraced by Watson (whose wife is a local girl, not to mention Canadian Olympian) and Day; it's the first tournament that Jason Day has taken by the scruff of the neck and won, and perhaps the confidence gained will elevate him from Major contender to Major winner. For those trying to figure out form prior to August's PGA Championship, five years ago at Whistling Straits Bubba lost to Kaymer in a play-off, Day was 10th in only his second Major (60th a month earlier at St.Andrews).

3).It was not good to see poor efforts from McDowell (who looks increasingly as if he'll miss the FedEx Play-Offs) and Laird (who has slipped outside the Top 70 qualifying places for the PGA Championship), both of whom missed the cut, and Luke Donald who might just as well have done.
And that got me to thinking, always dangerous: What would the European Ryder Cup Team look like if it was based upon this year's results, as measured by the world rankings?

4).The Top Twelve with points so far (*denotes 2014 team member):
281: McIlroy*
166: Rose*
136: Wiesberger
126: Casey
125: Stenson*
109: Willett
105: Garcia*
98: Sullivan
83: Lingmerth
82: Noren
82: Kjeldsen
81: Molinari
. . . . . followed by Morrison, Stal, Poulter*, Warren, Harrington.
(That assumes eligibility for non-Tour members Casey & Lingmerth who are included for completeness.)

5).The other five stragglers from Gleneagles are:
64: Kaymer
62: Westwood
58: Donaldson
30: Dubuisson
29: Gallacher
23: McDool
15: Bjorn (who might just as well have taken the summer off)

6).I was surprised to see that pretenders like Knox, Fleetwood, Luiten and Lowry were not in the Top 20. Maybe they're all waiting for a trip to Russia in September which is when qualifying begins. (Gawd knows why they didn't start in Denmark a fortnight earlier . . . . . . ..)

7).The US Team from Gleneagles have played a lot better for themselves than they did as a Team and their corresponding Top 12 owgr points getters are:
Spieth*, DJohnson, ZJohnson*, Walker*, Fowler*, Holmes, Watson*, Reed*, Furyk*, Kisner, Snedeker, Kuchar*.

8).Last week concluded a strong European Swing for the European Tour. And six more good'uns to come in the autumn. The fields then could be boosted by some refugees from the PGA Tour who will be exempt for the 2015/16 season, but are currently outside the points total necessary to qualify for the FedEx Play-Offs. e.g.: Donaldson, Donald, Schwartzel, Westwood, Goosen, McDowell, Kaymer and Els. Lets hope tournament directors are reading.

9).There'll be a triple digit "Heat Index" in the Washington DC suburbs this week as an especially poor field turns out for the "Quicken Loans National" event benefitting the Tiger Woods Foundation.  Messrs Rose (defending champ from last year at Congressional), Fowler and Walker will be there but otherwise the field is, let's say, not deep.
Nine of the field (Allenby, Cabrera, Cink, Clark, Els, Goosen, Leonard, Singh and Woods) have played Presidents Cup Matches at the new venue, Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Manassas, Virginia, but it will be a brand new course for most of the field. Not many local boys either though Billy Hurley might just about qualify as one.

10).Stephen Gallacher has been scuffling recently but he's playing the Quicken Loans event this week prior to trips to the Bridgestone and PGA Championship. Andy Sullivan's summer has been more successful and he's here too, hoping for a strong result and invite to Bridgestone action - he'll likely need something like a Top 8 finish to squeak inside the owgr Top 50, dependent upon the results of others, here and there.

This is the start of a torrid time for most top Pros. Those playing this week, let's say Rickie Fowler, will also play Bridgestone, PGA, week off, Barclays, DeutscheBank, week off, BMW, Tour Championship. Seven weeks out of nine is a lot of top-level golf; in the case of Fowler, Rose and Walker it will have been nine weeks out of 12. And next year there'll be The Olympics thrown in for a lucky(?) few.
NB: Anyone interested in what the PGA Tour schedule will look like is recommended to visit last week's thread for robo's unofficial/official calendar for which I'm grateful.

McLaren wrote:Yup, I could just google everything and not bother having any conversation on the forum. But if we all did that it would make this site pretty pointless.

Where did you get that stupid idea from? The forum is for conversing and debates - but you either have a phone in your hand or a PC/laptop at your fingertips to find the information for yourself.

It would be pretty dull if the conversations just consisted of being google on your behalf

McLaren wrote:Yup, I could just google everything and not bother having any conversation on the forum. But if we all did that it would make this site pretty pointless.

No Mac, it's called laziness, and wanting to be spoon fed, and you don't learn.
In this case Kwini made a comment. I didn't know about this PGA Championship points list. So I looked it up. Now I know it exists and more likely to remember it because I found it.

McLaren wrote:11. Vacancies are filled by the first available player from the list of alternates (those below 70th place in official money standings).

Do you want to check that Mac?

On the PGA site it has it as The balance of the field will be filled by the first available player from the list of alternates (those below 70th place in the PGA Championship Points list from the 2014 WGC-Bridgestone Invitational/Barracuda Championship thru the 2015 Quicken Loans National).

Which could make a difference.

Looks like Chris Como keeps his job for another 24 hours . . . . . . .

Terrible finish to Martin Laird's (two double-bogeys in his last 7 holes) round and Mac won't have to consult Wikipaedia on that. Most likely a weekend off for him and all his good early season work has pretty much gone down the drain.

Much better though from Russell Knox (67) and more good stuff from Greg Owen (68), arguably the surprise package of the PGA Tour season among Europeans.
Sullivan struggling and that's not good.

McLaren wrote:

kwinigolfer wrote:Four weeks ago.

Thanks.  Seems I haven't been watching tiger closely enough of late.


Currently he is limping along at E for the day.

Managed to hobble his way into T3. Might make the cut if he's lucky

Who'll be most intimidated by Tiger Woods over the weekend?
The contenders?
Or Tiger Woods himself?

It may be a crummy old field by usual Tour standards but Saturday's play (and Sunday's perhaps) will receive as much media coverage as any day this year.

Good man Ryo!!! Get the win this weekend!


Great to see from Tiger as well!

Eligible golfers not to have committed to the WGC-Bridgestone are McIlroy, Kirk and Alex Noren.
Anyone know what Noren's latest malady might be?

As a piece of intrigue, it is interesting to see that Golf Channel TV has started to air promotional ads for the FedEx Play-Offs featuring Rory McIlroy. Do they know something (else) that we don't?

TWI plays with CHIII tomorrow, two golfers who have achieved very little so far this year. Will that change this weekend?

SKY also did the same for Rory regarding the PGA billing it as the comeback so like you said do the media have some kind of insider knowledge that he will return for the PGA!?

Woods' glutes seem to be deactivated again...

I don't think Woods is far away from being competitive again. Trouble is, he has nowhere to play for the next two months unless he plays in Europe. He has the PGA and has dangled the carrot that he might play Greensboro, but after that there are six lost weeks unless he can produce something remarkable.
It's not what he wants, but he'd do himself a favour by just committing to play somewhere, anywhere, through the end of the year.

And "something remarkable" is exactly what Davis and Gonzo need today; at the very least they need to finish in the Top 150 this season to earn conditional status for next season. Both destined for the web.com Finals series the way things stand.

kwinigolfer wrote:play somewhere, anywhere, through the end of the year.

Just had a look a the remaining tournaments, Kwini and the only possibilities in prestige etc, that I could see would be the Porsche European Open, Alfred Dunhill Links and British Masters. Only the Alfred Dunhill Links has big prize money, but if he was offered an inducement, well anything goes. He could be invited to the Turkish Airlines Open and the BMW Masters in China, both with big prize money.

Yup, Why should Woods care about prize-money? It would all be about the appearance fee, or maybe just because he needs the "reps".

Off to a fine start this morning . . . . . .

I don't have a citation, but I believe Woods signed up for a 3 year commitment with the Turkish Airlines tournament.  Couldn't make it last year.

He is playing with the FRYS as his 'punishment' for playing the Turkey exhibition three years ago.  Rory is obligated to play the FRYS too and Schwartzel.

Woods and Kuchar are supposed to play a team event in Mexico in the fall too in connection with the Latino Americas tour.

BTW, I posted some OWGR info on Marc Warren.  He has to dodge some Quicken Loans bullets

I think Marc Warren will be OK.

Will Troy Merritt hang on for his first win?
How many remember him winning a 3-man Play-Off for $1M at a PGA Tour event?

i cant see TW paying the british tax for a a non major. would be great to see him playing in a madeira island open type event!

Rumours are that Mcilroy has booked a practice round at Whistling Straits for this Saturday!

Rory has a practice round scheduled at Whistling Straits for Saturday.
Is he Whistling Straight? (Hope so, Come on Rory!)
Or is he whistling Dixie??

SNAP!!!!

kwinigolfer wrote:
SNAP!!!!

are you referring to his leg...???

kwinigolfer wrote:Rory has a practice round scheduled at Whistling Straits for Saturday.
Is he Whistling Straight? (Hope so, Come on Rory!)
Or is he whistling Dixie??

SNAP!!!!

If he does play the practice round then I think he's really pushing the envelope with regard to healing time. My pound says he's a no show.

Seems unlikely Rory would travel to Wisconsin if he hasn't been giving his ankle a trial run, if not on the course at least on the range.

Chris Kirk, out for a month with a broken bone in his hand, has tweeted that he's targetting The Barclays in three weeks for his return to action.

http://www.irishgolfdesk.com/news-files/2015/8/4/mcilroy-not-booked-for-us-pga-comeback

According to Irish Golf Desk's source that Mcilroy isn't booked for a practice round this Saturday

Perhaps Reuters got a bit confused with this tee-time:

http://www.golfchannel.com/news/grill-room/rory-bryan-bros-team-pga-hype-video/

Even if Rory does go for a knock about on saturday he is already behind Spieth Simba in Straits acclimitization.

Simba at Whistling Straits

To keep the mods happy:

The rough looking pretty thick even around the tee.

Looks like Trump Aberdeen Mac.

Super

When are we playing Trumpton?

Not sure I could put up with you for 4 hours Mac. Might be amusing though, although £100 is a lot to find out.

Wow, hit in the solar plexus with that one.  My heart skipped a beat and I had to gulp back a sob.  Not cool.  

I'd also have to pick you up from the bus station.

super_realist wrote:Looks like Trump Aberdeen Mac.

Now that players are starting to have some practice rounds is any information coming out about the course set up? For example is the rough as long as it looks in Simba's photo and will we see some fast and firm conditions?

AP reported that golfers were taken off the course for safety reasons during Spieth's WS practice round due to dangerously strong winds. Somewhat ironic, don't you think?

Shoulda blocked em with the trump butt plug...

https://instagram.com/p/6AMjT4r2MR/

Rory just posted a video on his Instagram of him at the Gym, which is a very good sign

sirbenson wrote:https://instagram.com/p/6AMjT4r2MR/

Rory just posted a video on his Instagram of him at the Gym, which is a very good sign

Interesting video. It seems he may have over stated his original injury.



But WTF is he listening too?

scrawny legs.

Footloose

pedro wrote:Footloose

Very good.

My legs are probably just as skinny as his, maybe more so. If I play a lot of football they get a bit of toning but no bulk.

McLaren wrote:My legs are probably just as skinny as his, maybe more so.  If I play a lot of football they get a bit of toning but no bulk.  

Playstation doesn't count Mac

pedro wrote:Footloose

brilliant Pedro - didn't see it first time round

McLaren wrote:But WTF is he listening too?

"listening to?" It's Groovejet